Malaysian Mandarin

Phonology

The phonology of Malaysian Mandarin is more closely aligned with the Mandarin accents of Southern China than with the Beijing standard pronunciation. This is a consequence of the influence of other Sinitic varieties, including Cantonese and Hokkien.

In comparison with Standard Chinese, Taiwanese or Singaporean Mandarin, Malaysian Mandarin is characterised by a relatively tonally 'flat' sound, as well as an extensive use of glottal stops and the "checked tone". This results in a distinct "clipped" sound compared to other forms of Mandarin.

• The phonemes "j", "x", and "h" (as in 級 ji, 西 xi, and 漢 han) tend to be pronounced as /t͡s/, /s/, and /h/ (rather than /t͡ɕ/, /ɕ/, and /x/) – also influenced by absence of alveopalatals in Malay phonology.
• the "er" phoneme (as in 兒 or 二) is usually pronounced as /ə/ (instead of /ɚ/)
• the "i" phoneme (as in 吃, 十, or 日) is usually pronounced as /ɨ~ə/ (instead of /ɹ̩~ɻ̩/)
• the "r" phoneme (as in 然) is usually pronounced as /ɹ/ (similar to English, instead of /ʐ/)

Demographics

As of 2014, 93% of ethnic Chinese families in Malaysia speak varieties of Chinese, which includes Mandarin.

Early Ming and Qing immigrants

The majority of ethnic Chinese people living in Malaysia came from China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, between the 15th and early 20th centuries. Earlier immigrants married Malays and assimilated to a larger extent than later waves of migrants – they form a distinct sub-ethnic group known as the Peranakans, and their descendants speak Malay.

The majority of immigrants were speakers of Hokkien (Min Nan), Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew, and Hainanese. In the 19th century, Qing immigrants to Malaya had no single common language and were mostly uneducated peasants, and they tended to cluster themselves according to the ethno-linguistic group, usually corresponding to their place of origin, and worked with relatives and other speakers of the same language. In 1879, according to Isabella Bird, a visitor to the tin mining boomtown of Taiping, Perak, "five topolects of Chinese are spoken, and Chinamen constantly communicate with each other in Malay, because they can't understand each other's Chinese".

The Chinese languages spoken in Malaysia have over the years become localized (e.g. Penang Hokkien), as is apparent from the use of Malay and English loan words. Words from other Chinese languages are also injected, depending on the educational and cultural background of the speaker. Mandarin in Malaysia has also been localized, as a result of the influence of other Chinese variants spoken in Malaysia, rather than the Malay language. Loan words were discouraged in Mandarin instructions at local Chinese school and were regarded as mispronunciations.

References

References

1. Khoo, Kiak Uei. (2017-03-01). "Malaysian Mandarin variation with regard to Mandarin globalization trend: Issues on language standardization". International Journal of the Sociology of Language.
2. (December 2016). "Articulatory Characteristics of the Coronal Consonants in Malaysian Mandarin: With Special Reference to the Non-"Canonical" Sibilants". [[National Tsing Hua University]].
3. Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin. "[http://www.ukm.my/news/index.php/research-news/1793-research-found-malaysian-chinese-do-not-give-due-attention-to-bahasa-malaysia-usage.html Research Found Malaysian Chinese Do Not Give Due Attention To Bahasa Malaysia Usage] {{Webarchive. link. (11 March 2015 " ([https://archive.today/20150311120037/http://www.ukm.my/news/index.php/research-news/1793-research-found-malaysian-chinese-do-not-give-due-attention-to-bahasa-malaysia-usage.html Archive]). [[National University of Malaysia]]. 27 May 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2015. "She also found 93% of Malaysian families of Chinese origin speak Mandarin with many different combinations of dialects and currently 53% of the respondents speak Chinese dialects with their parents compared with 42% in 1970.")
4. [The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature by Prof. Dato' Dr Asmah Haji Omar (2004) {{ISBN. 981-3018-52-6.]